For the Future that is Forever out of our Reach
by intertwingular
Summary: A boy meets a girl, and a girl meets a boy, but on the inside, it is so, so, so much more. oneshot, AU


He brings his hands up to my face, blind eyes searching my soul, nimble fingers caressing every bump and crevice upon my face.

"You've got a very kind face, don't you?" He breathed, his sea-green orbs smiling with him. "Although, I'm not quite sure that I should be saying that…makes me sound kind of creepy. But, I'm glad. Most of the time, you don't sound very nice."

And I just stand still, a flaring blush spreading across my face as he traces the folds of the ears, the bags underneath my eyes from many sleepless nights. _'I should be pushing him away,_' I tell myself. But I can't bring myself to do it. He's just so fragile, hat it seems like one false touch will reduce him to sparkling glass chips at my feet, beautiful, but dangerous, a heavy reminder of the pain that will be inflicted upon me if I harm him.

He takes a step back.

"Are you blushing? Your face feels very hot all of a sudden." He looks up at me, meeting my eyes, and at the same time, never meeting them at all. "Sorry if this makes you uncomfortable. I'm just seeing more of you than any person with sight would be able to." The statement is laced with sarcasm, and I laugh. "I know!" He exclaims, spreading his arms, motioning wildly, his shaggy mane of jet-black hair moving with him. "HELLO CITIZENS OF EARTH!" He screams, "I AM BLIND, AND THAT MEANS THAT I CAN SEE YOUR VERY SOULS! YOU CANNOT HIDE ANYTHING FROM ME! MUAHHHHH!" Then he drops his hands, clearing his throat. "Hah. Threw them off their game!" He jabs a finger in the general direction of a group of boys playing on their PSPs, the hoods of their jackets visible from underneath their beanies. The few of them that are there are muttering amongst themselves, and a couple look like they'd want nothing better than to run for their mothers.

"How do you know that?" I ask him, cocking my head in confusion.

He scratches his head. "I could hear them muttering, and the clicking of their PSP buttons stopped. I just kind of put two and two together." He smirks, batting the small, cottony balls hanging from his hat. And I shake my head.

"You know," He starts, catching my attention again. "When we first met, I thought you were a high school student, or at the very least, an eighth grader. It's kind of hard to believe that you're a sixth grader like me, at least if your vocabulary has anything to say about it." I smile, my gloved hands tugging on my knitted cap, as I watch our breaths spiral up in puffs of white mist. I can't help but think that he must be cold, because it's winter, and he's only wearing a black sweatshirt, and a blue hat with the flaps that go over your ears, and the strings hanging off of the flaps with small white puffballs that Percy is constantly playing with.

"If it helps," I say, "I never thought that you were blind when you transferred into Jefferson Junior High." His eyes grow clouded at my statement, and I know I've hit a sore note, and Percy's hands drop limply to his sides, no longer occupied with teasing his hat. He keeps blinking, ending his never-ending gaze, as if blinking alone will bring his sight back.

"T-That's nice to know." He mumbles, his voice catching at the beginning of he sentence. And I feel like a complete jerk, as his sneaker-clad foot begins to kick loose pebbles on the park's dirt walkway. I start to stammer an apology, kicking myself over, and over again in my head. "Nah. Don't worry about it!" He smiles, his eyes light, almost turquoise in color now. "If we stopped to apologize every time we stepped on each others toes, Annabeth, we wouldn't have any time to be friends." And he smiles again, and begins to walk down the dirt path towards the exit closest to his apartment. "You coming?" He calls to me, me and my frozen legs, and my feet of stone. "I did tell you that my mom promised to make us hot chocolate when we got back right?" And I nod numbly, a slow smile breaking out across my face. And as I chase after his retreating figure, yelling at him to wait for me, because he's _blind_ after all, and can't cross the street alone, puffy white flakes of snow begin to fall behind me.

Before I can even stop to marvel how fast time seems to pass, it's my senior year in high school, and I'm sitting next to him in that same park, all the snow melted from the grassy hilltop, and the summer sun shining on us. His fingers are intertwined within mine, and my head is resting on his broad shoulder. How can he be that same scrawny kid from back in sixth grade? How did he grow up without me even noticing? I remove my head from his shoulder, and lean back into the grass, staring up at the puffy clouds in above me. "Percy," He looks in my direction, and blinks a few times. "How long have you been blind?" His unseeing gaze widens, and he falls back into the grass as well, nimble fingers hunting through the thin stalks of grass, and lacing their way through mine.

"I was born like this." He sighs, smiling tiredly. "I wish I wasn't though. I'd like to see what you look like, what my mom looks like, what little Teresa looks like, what the sky looks like-hell, I'd like to see the entire world." He stands up, his shadow blocking out the blinding sunlight. "Come on, let's get going. Can you help me review for finals?"

"Sure thing." I say, hoisting myself up.

Percy fishes around in his sweatshirt pocket for a minute or two, and pulls out a pair of ear buds, and hooks them up to the jack in his blue I-Phone 5C. "Lead me? I'm going to listen to something on my playlist."

"Sure." I tell him, and he thanks me, saying that if it's a problem, I don't have to do it, but I cut him off with a kiss, and he flushes a bright red, his ears lighting up as well. "Let's move Seaweed Brain."

"Yeah, whatever Wise Girl." He smirks again, and I pick up his hand, and we walk, hand in hand to the same exit we always take. When we reach the crossing area, I say to him,

"Give me a second Percy, I've got to tie my shoe. I'll nudge you when I'm done, OK?" And he nods, focusing ahead, but never seeing anything but the dark. The walk sign changes just as I bend down to tie my shoe, and the crowd surges forward, and I guess somebody must have nudged Percy by accident, and he starts walking. I run after him, yelling for him to stop. But of course, I remember, he can't hear me. Cursing underneath my breath, I run faster, until somebody knocks me out of the way.

Tires screech.

People scream.

A child begins to cry.

And the whole city seems to be silent.

The busy street just seems to stop.

And I crack open my eyes, and I scream, half in horror, and the other half in emotional pain. Percy, _my Percy_, is limp on the asphalt, blood dribbling from his mouth, and marching sluggishly down his face, from a wound covered by his shaggy bangs. He pushed me aside.

_My brave, brave Percy. _

"Why?" I choke on the words, salty teardrops free falling down my face. "How?"

"I bumped into you. Smelt your strawberry shampoo. Felt your curls. I heard the taxi horn. I'm not sorry you know." He smiles cheekily, but he looks so tired, and so old. I hug him tight, and hear one woman say that she called an ambulance.

"Hear that?" I whisper, "An ambulance is coming. You'll be fine. Just hold on, OK?"

He looks up at me, his sea-green orbs full of fear. "P-Promise?" He whispers. "Promise?"

I nod, and more tears stain his green sweater.

"Read something."

"Now?" I ask, shuffling through my messenger bag. "Percy, I don't have anything on me."

"You have your phone." He croaks, his voice coming and fading. "Read me your story-the one that you posted on Author's Corner."

"O-OK." I open a new tab, and clear my throat.

"_She's dancing, but there isn't any tune to dance to, just the serenade of crickets and the mountain songbirds. Her feet are bare, and the grains of dirt worm their way into the bottom of her toes, to the bottom of her heel. She shouldn't be up here; she knows. But the forbidden fruit is the most tempting. The mountain is her sanctuary; it is_ hers_ and hers alone. And the spring flowers are blooming, brilliant shades of purple, pink, faded orange, sunny yellow, and creamy white. She dances, and dances, and dances, her skirt fanning out around her, her flowing sleeves rippling in the breeze. So much peace, within all the discord inside her family. She could dance forever, but she _can't_ no matter how much she wishes she could. So she closes her eyes, and lets the dance become the only thing she knows for that brief eternity." _

The story ends, and I stare down at Percy's whose eyes are fluttering, his breaths growing even. "Stay awake." I beg. "The ambulance is almost here." And I'm not lying to him, and he blinks, over and over again, sea-green eyes opening and closing, as the sound of sirens grows louder and louder, until a red, blue, and white ambulance is opening its back doors, and they load Percy onto a stretcher, sticking an IV into his arm, and placing a respirator over his mouth and nose. They let me climb on, after he makes odd noises when they refuse to let me on, and I sit by his side, watching his breath fog and un-fog the respirator's clear mask.

Percy dies three day later, in the ICU. His heart failed, and it is then that I realize, that he was sickly all along. Sickly since birth, sickly when we were in sixth grade, and sickly until the day he died.

I sit, curled up in the fat beanbag that I had gotten the year before, the one where I had first kissed him, the same beanbag where I would sit on him, and read aloud, while he'd complain that I was too heavy, then I'd hit him, and we'd laugh. My laptop is open on my lap, and I scroll down the Facebook page somebody set up as a tribute for him.

And the comments absolutely appall me.

I, and about every single American girl in their teens to pre-teens had read _The Fault in Our Stars _by John Green. And after Augustus dies, Hazel looks at the Facebook page mourning his passing. I never really understood what she had been feeling then and there, but as I read the comments, I understood.

One comment, and many other like it read, _Percy was a great guy, and super funny too. You'll live forever in our hearts dude._

What, were they going to live forever? Did they honestly think they owned him? Like, HEY, YOU KNOW HOW YOU'RE DEAD? WELL TOO BAD STUPID, I OWN YOU NOW, OK?

I didn't write a comment on the page, because I knew that Percy would never be able to read it, even if he had been alive right now, and I was sitting on him on this beanbag. It would just make him sad. And that was the last thing I wanted, either dead or alive. It was the same thing.

A week later, I was invited to Percy's funeral. All of his classmates had been invited, and it had been decided that we would all wear our prom clothing, because Percy had once told me that when he died, he wouldn't want "any poor sucker to be forced to dress in black." And Percy had been looking forward to prom, because this year, he had finally worked up the courage to ask me to the senior prom, which was the only prom we'd ever get.

So his mother dressed him in the sky blue button down he'd chosen for prom, and his khakis.

I came in a sky blue dress that I had gotten from a thrift store down the street. The minister said a few words, and brought people up to speak.

Then he called me up.

I wrung my hands together the stares of my peers, and Percy's family boring into me. "Percy was blind his entire life. But he never made a big deal about it, because he just really didn't care. When I first met him, I never thought that somebody so alive could be blind to the world." And I went on spewing shit about him, and how much he meant, and then, I could talk anymore. My words had run dry, and I couldn't think of anything anymore but of how he'd been bleeding that day, and how brave he'd been, and how dumb I'd been, how careless I'd been.

And I cried.

Cried for him.

For everything he never saw.

For everything he'd never see.

For the future that never was.

For the future that is forever out of our reach.


End file.
